STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Reading is Alison Salazar’s favorite school subject in her third-grade classroom at PS 13. The soft-spoken 7-year-old particularly enjoys books about animals, naming “Santa Paws” as the last one that she read. She loves giraffes, but has not found a book in the library about these animals.

“I have a lot of friends, all girls,” said Alison. She plays with them at school, and mentioned her classmate, Kelly, whom she described as “nice, and special.”

We talked to Alison last Thursday, when she was in the company of her 10-year-old sister, Sitlaly, a sixth-grader at Egbert Intermediate School, and cousin Mariana, 9, who is in fourth-grade at PS 13.